Closure
by Miss Lovelin
Summary: Taking place after the film, Menma visits her little brother in a dream. Oneshot.


**I don't own Anohana. Sorry if this is kind of bad, I felt like writing something short.**

* * *

 _Why do I want to learn more about her now?_

 _Meiko, my older sister... she died years ago, on a day that I barely remember._

 _She would tell me to watch over the house when I wanted to play outside with her._

 _"I'm in the Super Peace Busters, so I'm going to protect world peace, so you stay here and protect the house, got it?"_

 _It made me feel less important, but maybe she was concerned for my safety._

 _Considering... how she died..._

Satoshi Honma sits at the shrine made in the memory of his sister, staring at the happy picture of her on the mantle.

 _I never really knew who you were, Meiko._

 _But I really wish that I did._

* * *

The sun set on another day, lost in the shadowy blanket of the humid summer night, and gave way to the shining silver moon and its stars.

After dinner, Satoshi took one last look at the picture of Meiko, and went to bed.

Staring at his bedroom ceiling, he couldn't help but think of her friends, the Super Peace Busters, how much she had meant to them. How much they loved her. The kind of person she was to have been remembered so fondly years after she'd died so young.

He began to cry, recalling for the first time in years, things like her funeral, the hazy memories of when they would talk and play before Meiko made new friends.

How his parents wept at the news of her death... how he wept on that day...

Yet, he didn't know exactly who she was. He loved his sister, but never got to tell her what he wanted to tell her before she was gone forever, swept away by the river and lost under the waves.

That was the first night Satoshi had ever cried himself to sleep.

* * *

 _"Saa-kun?"_

Satoshi's eyes snapped open, immediately aware that he was dreaming.

 _That voice, that nickname..._

 _A familiar scent?_

"Onee-chan?"

A silver haired, blue eyed girl in a white dress adorned with a blue ribbon, only slightly taller than him, stood before him in the white void, her hair billowing in the wind.

His older sister had grown even after her death.

"Men...ma?" Satoshi couldn't help but stutter, seeing his sister in the same dress that she died in, but still, even slightly, taller than him.

"I'm happy to see you again, Saa-kun," Menma gently takes her little brother's hands, tears forming in her eyes, "soon, you could be taller than me."

Satoshi stood in awe, gazing at his sister's face, barely changed from when he last saw her... alive... hearing her voice again, still the same despite the time that passed.

He starts bawling and clinging to Meiko, memories of her pouring back.

"Onee-chan, it's you..."

Menma smiled, tears silently streaming down her face. She just held him close, humming a familiar song to herself.

"I'm here because there's something I really wanted you to know."

Satoshi looks up at Menma again, letting her wipe away his tears.

The ghost tilts her head, beaming joyfully, a stark contrast to the tears rolling down her pale cheeks.

"Saa-kun, I was so happy to be a big sister. I would sing to you all the time when you were still in Oka-san's belly, you know, and tell you stories, too...

"I remember when you were born, and you were so little... I promised you I'd be the best big sister, and I would keep you safe. I held you the day you were born, and I sang you a song, and you smiled at me. It was so cute..."

 _Meiko never changed..._

"I loved you from the moment you came to be, and I always will. When I reincarnate, I'll be with you again, just in a different form. I could be a flower, or a butterfly, or a kitty cat, even, and I would still find my way to you. I love you, Saa-kun. You're my only little brother. If you were the one that died, I couldn't forgive myself..."

Satoshi didn't know what to say, still sobbing to no end.

"I love you too, Onee-chan... You're a member of Super Peace Busters, so you protected me, too..."

"See you in the morning," were Menma's last words to him.

"I wish I had been there to watch you grow so tall."

* * *

Satoshi bolted awake, his face wet with tears.

His first thoughts were to go outside for some air. Upon going outside, the first thing that catches his eye is a white and blue forget me not flower under a tree, softly blowing in the light breeze, beautiful in full bloom.

 _A familiar scent._

The gentle summer air does nothing to stop his tears, but he is smiling as he goes back into the house.

"Oka-san?"

Irene Honma was sitting at the kitchen table, turning to her son in surprise.

"Yes? ...Why are you crying? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, I just... wanted to know if you if you had any baby pictures of me around."

Irene smiles, leaving the room for a moment and returning with several pictures, one of which Satoshi was specifically looking for.

A toddler Meiko, beaming with happiness as she held a sleeping baby Satoshi close in her arms, was the photo he found.

It was soon framed and put next to the other picture of Meiko on the shrine, proof that love between siblings never dies.

And the little white flower under the tree outside watched the entire summer go by as the little brother it knew and loved in its previous life find his own happiness again.

The wind that blew past it almost sounded like the echoes of joyous laughter.


End file.
